I have both The Great Radio Heroes and The Great Radio Comedians. Fine books, and I owe some of my current interest in OTR to Harmon's pioneering work.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Jim Harmon, R. I. P.
news from me - ARCHIVES - February 18, 2010: "Author-historian Jim Harmon died February 16 from (I am told) a heart attack. Jim was born in 1933 and in the forties, he was an avid collector of pulp magazines — science-fiction, especially — and a devout fan of radio programs of the day. He became an expert in these areas, authoring several fine books, most notably The Great Radio Heroes, a top-selling 1967 chronicle of an art form and an era."
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4 comments:
Rotten news. He was doing OTR programming for satellite radio at least as late as a couple of years ago, and suspect he still was unless health was kicking him. He was, of course, also a fiction writer, published a number of short stories in the late 1950s and '60s...some good by any standard.
Back in the day, Harmon was paying attention to aspects of Pop Culture that serious critics wouldn't give the time of day to. He as never deep but always enjoyable.
Sad, indeed. His 1967 paperback, The Great Radio Heroes was the first book I read on OTR when I was a young lad.
I read it about that time, too, though I wasn't a young lad.
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